


I will not lack of happiness and well-being

by renjutori



Category: 18th Century CE RPF
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Frederick William I was really not a nice dude, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 08:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17118017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renjutori/pseuds/renjutori
Summary: Friedrich isn’t a boy when they meet, but he feels like one. Or: A love story in 10.5 parts, not necessarily in that order.





	I will not lack of happiness and well-being

**Author's Note:**

  * For [V_V_lala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_V_lala/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide~ Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful winter.
> 
> cw: mentions of period typical homophobia, some parental abuse

_un_

Friedrich isn’t a boy when they meet, but he feels like one. He is seventeen, can scarcely grow a beard, and he is more interested in playing the flute than learning to wage war. None of the other men in his mathematics class will mock the Crown Prince openly, but their awareness of his difference is obvious, their conversations float around him like a river to a rock.

One day, another man sits in the empty seat next to him. “Is this seat taken?”

“You’re sitting in it now, so I’d imagine so,” Friedrich says, and the other man laughs. It’s a surprising sound. No one else likes his jokes.

“Hans Hermann von Katte,” he says, holding out a hand, “Lieutenant.”

“Friedrich, Crown Prince of Prussia.”

“Your Royal Highness,” Katte drops his hand. “I apologize. I didn’t know I was speaking to the Crown Prince and should not have acted with such impunity. I’ll move seats immediately.”

“No,” Friedrich blurts. Katte freezes. He tacks on hastily, “Stay, if you’d like. Mathematics can be awfully dull sometimes, I don’t mind the company.”

In an instant, the other man relaxes. There is an easiness of sorts around him, the kind Friedrich would kill to have. What must it be like, to be able to let down your guard so easily around people, to feel at home wherever you go, whatever skin you wear.

“Alright then,” he says, “I really didn’t know.”

Friedrich shakes his head furiously. “No, it’s alright. Let’s start over.” He glances around the room carefully, but no one is looking. Why does he do that? He’s allowed to have friends, even if Wilhelmine would say that as their societal better, he shouldn’t interact with those lower. Before he loses his nerve, he holds out a hand, trying to paste an easy grin on his face.

“I’m Friedrich,” he says. “Just Friedrich.”

Katte’s mouth quirks, and Friedrich suddenly finds it hard to swallow. It’s friendship, he tells himself. “I’m Hans,” Katte says, and clasps his hand firmly. “Glad to meet you.”

And that is how it starts.

 

* * *

 

_trois_

 

“You speak French?” Friedrich asks one day as he peers over Katte’s shoulder, against his will. Friedrich can’t bring himself to think of him as Hans for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because he’s older, perhaps it is because he doesn’t feel close enough to. A tiny part of him thinks that it would be a good thing, to not get too close. The other man jumps.

“Yes,” he says, clearing his throat, eyes startled. “My parents wished for me to be well-educated in international matters. I don’t get to use it much though, so I try to write my mathematics notes in it for practice, and to feel fancy for a time.”

“Does it work?”

“Well, my French certainly hasn’t degraded. As for the fanciness, I’m not sure. I’ll get back to you after I’ve acquired more data.”

Friedrich laughs, loudly. A few other students turn to look at him, and he lowers his voice immediately. “You should practice with me. It’s one of my favorite languages, my childhood tutor was French.”

Katte is already shaking his head, “I don’t know, I’m sure you’re terribly busy.”

“I insist. We can feel fancy together.”

Katte smiles. “Alright then,” he says, and they meet every week when they can afterwards.

 

* * *

 

 

_neuf et demi_

 

If he had known how it was going to end, back then, he would never have shaken Katte's hand. He would have told the man to find another seat, told him that he preferred to sit in class uninterrupted and alone. Would have spent the hours in boredom instead of passing notes in French, drawing rude caricatures of various officials at court (he always burned them, of course, afterwards. It was the initial drawing in and of itself that felt the most thrilling).

It would have been lonely, miserable even. He never would have touched the flute again, or read poetry aloud. He doesn’t ever play the flute now either, but it doesn’t matter. None of it would have mattered.

 

* * *

 

_deux_

 

There’s something wrong with Katte’s hair. Not wrong, exactly, but off. Every time Friedrich looks at it, he gets the strange urge to touch it. Perhaps it’s bewitched. It would certainly explain a lot. Except—

His face still stings from the last time his father slapped him. He forces himself to focus on mathematics instead.

 

* * *

 

_cinq_

 

“I don’t have many real friends,” Friedrich says one day, out of the blue. Katte rolls with it, he always does. It’s something Friedrich lo—appreciates, about him.

“Oh?”

“You’re one of the only ones. There’s Robert Keith of course, you met him the other day, but I don’t think I feel as close to him as I do to you.”

“You’ve known him longer. That makes no sense,” Katte points out.

“We haven’t been too close in a long time. You see, I was friends with his brother once, Peter.” The words are pouring out of his mouth now, and he’s not sure why. He shouldn’t be telling Katte this. Maybe he’s tired. All the same, he finds himself unable to stop talking. “The three of us were all very close. Peter and I… we were closer, though.”

Katte looks up, seeming to sense his distress. “Were? Did you have a falling out?”

“You wouldn’t have heard about this,” Friedrich says. “My father kept it quiet.”

“I’m sure his Majesty meant well.” He goes back to writing his notes.

“Don’t.” Friedrich says sharply. “Don’t defend him to me. You don’t have to.”

Katte stops writing.

“I loved him, you know. And my father found out, and he sent him away. Just like that.”

Katte puts the pen down and looks at Friedrich. There’s a sense of caution in his eyes. “Your father sent away a man for being your friend?” He smiles weakly, “Am I at risk then, too?”

“I…” Friedrich hesitates. Is he really doing this? “I didn’t love him as a friend.” He is.

Katte’s eyes are unreadable. “Why are you telling me this?”

Friedrich shakes his head. “Forget it,” he says, and he leaves.

 

* * *

 

_six_

 

At their next meeting, Katte acts like nothing has happened. He shows up fifteen minutes early, as always. Friedrich almost didn’t come, but something in him wouldn’t let him.

“Why aren’t you saying anything about what happened,” he snaps eventually.

Katte gives him an even glance. “I assumed you didn’t want me to, given the way that you left last time.” He instantly turns red. “I didn’t mean any offense, my apologies. I only meant—”

“Forget it.”

Katte takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I didn’t react how you wanted me to, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think it was… wrong of you, to love your friend. Peter. I’m sorry he was sent away.”

Friedrich looks away. “It was months ago, now.”

“Still doesn’t mean that it was right, or that it doesn’t hurt. It obviously took you a great deal of courage for you to tell me, and I’m glad that you were able to tell someone. I don’t care that it was me, I’m just… glad you were able to discuss it at all.”

“Thank you,” Friedrich says quietly, and they pretend to study mathematics together in silence for the next two hours. Friedrich pretends, anyway. Katte seems to do just fine.

The sun is coming through the window at just the right angle to strike the back of Katte’s head. It makes his hair glow, halo-like, his face an indecipherable blob against the brightness that cloaks him. Without even thinking about it, Friedrich is leaning forward.

Katte looks up. “No,” he says, and his voice is thick. It’s strange to see him like this. “I can’t. I’m older than you. I’m an officer. My responsibility is to protect you.”

“And I’m technically above you in command.”

“It’s different.”

Friedrich feels angry, not because of the rejection, but at the entire system of it all. The ages, the ranks, how stifling it all is. “It doesn’t have to be,” he says, and he knows, at the back of his mind that it’s not entirely true. If they are found out, it will absolutely come down to all of the militant law he hates, but he says it anyway.

Katte just stares at him, and Friedrich has never seen him look so helpless before.

“I won’t,” he says, “If you truly don’t want me to. But I want this.”

Katte exhales, shakily. “Okay.” He raises his chin, defiant almost. “Kiss me then.”

Friedrich does, and he doesn’t think about the lectures his father gives him or the long months he spent away after Peter and him were discovered and honestly, he isn’t even thinking about Peter because Katte is so much more, he’s beautiful, he’s everything, and it feels—it just feels right.

 

* * *

 

_sept_

 

“Let’s run away together.” Friedrich says, when he is in one of those moods and has just been kissed senseless. It’s those times when he feels his future is one worth living for.

Katte laughs, “A good joke.”

“No,” he presses, “I’m serious. We could do it. Flee to England, desert, live free with my cousins. What is there to lose?”

Katte stops laughing, and fixes him with a steady look. It’s not the kind that he usually gives Friedrich, but it makes his knees weak all the same. He always does. “Our heads,” he says seriously, ever the voice of reason. “Our honor. Didn’t you pledge an oath to your country? To your people, like I did? Does it mean nothing to you?”

“Of course not!” Friedrich snaps.

They are silent for a moment. Outside, it begins to rain.

“And anyway,” Friedrich says, softer. “I would pardon you.”

Katte smiles, although his eyes seem strained at the corners. “Can’t pardon me if you don’t have a head, Your Royal Highness.”

Friedrich laughs, uneasily. The natural response would be that his father would never do such a thing, but that would be a lie. He thinks. He can never tell anymore.

They read in silence for the rest of the hour. The rain doesn’t let up, droplets tapping at the window gently, then with increasing noise. Odd. It’s sunny out, today.

 

* * *

 

_quatre_

 

Katte likes poetry too. They spend hours talking about it sometimes, when both are free of obligations and able to meet. Otherwise, they pass notes about it in class. Katte’s handwriting is smooth and fluid, free of unseemly blots or shakiness, and Friedrich thinks it is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He makes Friedrich laugh, and he is worldly and sensible and everything Friedrich’s father is not. When he finds out that Friedrich has been getting in trouble for playing the flute, he sneaks him off to an abandoned room and forces him inside. “Play,” he tells him, “and I will stay outside to make sure that no one comes to stop you.”

“You’ll be in trouble too,” Friedrich protests.

“It’s alright,” Katte winks. “I’ll tell them that a world-famous composer has demanded my services as a soldier to prevent anyone from entering and disrupting his current opus magnus. And if they don’t go away, I guess I could always try stabbing them.”

Friedrich thinks that it is then that he starts to love him. How could he not?

 

* * *

 

_huit_

 

“Let’s run away,” Friedrich says again, weeks later. “Please.” He’s asked him before, countless times. But this time is different. He can sense his resolve weakening, life at court and in the army wearing at him.

Katte sighs. “You’re asking me to desert my country.”

“Robert, and some other junior officers are already on board. We could do it, easily. Sneak away at Manheim, be in England before anyone even knows we’re gone. Leave this all behind.”

“It’s too risky. I’m not… It’s hard for me too. But it’s the life we’ve been given. Just bear out the rest of your father’s reign. It may be long, but it’s doable. And then you’re free.”

Friedrich slumps. “I’ll never be free, whether my father’s alive or not. Not here. I’ll do it with or without you.”

Katte stills. For a long time, he doesn’t speak. And then: “Alright. I’ll come.” He kisses Friedrich’s forehead. “I could never leave you to face it all alone.”

Friedrich thinks it’s then that he knows he loves him.

 

* * *

 

_neuf_

 

He makes it as far as the river before they get to him. Katte doesn’t even leave Potsdam, deeming it too risky. Robert’s letter leaves no one unsure of their intentions, and they are thrown in separate cells in Küstrin. He doesn’t know what happens to the others.

Friedrich’s father comes to get him himself. “I thought about letting them behead you, you know,” he says, as he drags him out by his hair. “Then I thought about settling with taking you out of the line of succession on account of the treason charges.”

“Katte,” Friedrich says weakly, looking at the floor. “What will become of him?” Friedrich doesn’t care an ounce what happens to him, not unless Katte will be okay too.

“Katte was a member of the King's Guard who deserted. He’s been sentenced to life in prison, or until I die. Whichever comes first.”

Friedrich briefly wonders if poisoning his father will be a possibility. Hope. God, he has hope.

“But,” he says, and Friedrich’s heart drops, “I’ve convinced them to execute him instead.”

“No,” Friedrich says. “No.” He’s never spoken to his father like this.

His father slaps him. “Look at me.” Friedrich does. How can he not?

“That… man, and to call him that is a mislabeling, will be executed by the end of the week, and you will watch. And then we will return home, you will put aside all your fanciful notions of French and flutes and poetry. And we will never speak of this again, and you will _act like a man_. Do you understand?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns to the guards and says, “Take him to his quarters. Let him bathe and dress and eat, but under no circumstances let him out of your sight.”

“No,” Friedrich says numbly, again, but his father has already left the room.

 

* * *

 

_dix_

 

It’s sunny the day that Katte dies, and Friedrich can’t even find it in himself to be angry at the weather. He wants to, though. He wants to do so much.

Katte is already kneeling when they bring Friedrich out to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. His hair, his wondrous hair, is already cut short. The headsman has already finished sharpening his axe. Nothing feels real. Friedrich is numb.

Katte looks up at him, but Friedrich is too far away to read his expression. “Please forgive me, my dear Katte,” he calls, in French. What other language could he use? It is theirs. He will never speak to him in it again. He starts to sob, and the guards jostle him roughly. His father’s face turns red, no doubt embarrassed by Friedrich’s so-called feminine antics. “In the name of God,” he pleads, not even sure if he believes in God anymore, “forgive me.”

Katte smiles. “There is nothing to forgive,” he says, and he sounds at peace. “I die for you with joy in my heart.”

The headsman raises his axe. And that is how it ends.

 

* * *

  _fin_

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Frederick the Great and Hans Hermann Von Katte really did use French together as they both loved the language, and Katte really did "guard" him while he played the flute so he wouldn't be found out and get in trouble with his father.  
> 2\. Historical sources kind of varied on when and how they met (and there was little info I could find on how the escape attempt went), so I chose one and rolled with it.  
> 3\. Frederick did have an affair with Peter Karl Christoph von Keith when they were 16 and 17 respectively, a year or so before meeting Katte. His father found out and sent Keith to an unpopular regiment near the Dutch front and Frederick was sent to his father, William Frederick I's hunting lodge in Brandenburg to, I quote, "repent of his sin". William Frederick I was a staunch Calvinist and disapproved of his son's hobbies and "effeminate" behavior.  
> 4\. Frederick was really close to his sister Wilhelmine, who apparently did warn him about being careful with who he associated with. I thought about working her in more but it didn't work with the pacing so I didn't.  
> 5\. Frederick is generally considered to be gay by most modern biographers. He apparently once said "Fortune has it in for me; she is a woman, and I am not that way inclined" after losing a battle.  
> 6\. Frederick went on to become Frederick the Great, known for his expansive military victories and interest in Enlightenment philosophy. He had some terrible opinions on Judaism and Catholicism, and women, but also had some policies and beliefs that were fairly progressive for the time. He married, but lived separate from his wife for most of their marriage and never had children.  
> 7\. Katte wrote a final letter to his father, which I highly recommend reading, it's very interesting. The title is taken from a sentence of it.  
> 8\. Those really were Katte and Frederick's last words to each other. Afterward, Frederick fainted, stayed in his room for three days (reportedly suffering a fever). After those three days, Frederick never spoke of Katte again (as far as historians know) and never visited his grave or spoke of him again.


End file.
